


Abandoned Letter to the Empress

by vilecrocodile



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 06:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15880485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vilecrocodile/pseuds/vilecrocodile
Summary: It's hard to find the words.





	Abandoned Letter to the Empress

_Your Imperial Highness,  
_  
_Thank you for the gift. While your generosity is_  
 

She returns to Dunwall only once, during the Funge Feast. Billie could never resist a good Funge, and it promises to be a truly riotous one this year, with all the excitement circulating around the return of their prodigal Empress. Flushed rumors fly that Her Imperial Highness herself will stalk the streets tonight.

Do pieces of the Void call to each other? Does a Mark fizzle and hiss when it approaches a chunk of a dead god?

A masked woman corners Billie in an alley; she is tall and sinewy, but that doesn't mean anything. There is a sword at her waist, but many find it prudent, or exhilarating, to carry weapons during the Funge. Her clothes are of a fine cloth and expensively cut, but it's not uncommon for nobles to wander the slums seeking rougher excitements. The mask is of a snarling wolfhound, its black eyes glittering in the fading evening light. She approaches Billie, slowly but intently, staggering slightly against the wall. She reeks of white leaf tobacco, a favorite of the upper classes. As she nears, Billie holds up her good hand.

“No talking,” she commands, swaying in place a little, trying not to slur her words.

The wolfhound head hesitates for a moment, and then nods, slowly.

Billie drains the last of her whiskey and tosses the bottle aside, hearing it smash on the cobblestones. “Come on, then.”

The woman begins to remove her shirt. She does not remove her gloves.

 

 _To Empress Emily Kaldwin,  
_  
_I don't want your coin_  
 

“So, what can the Empress of the Isles do for you?” She lifts her marked hand and wriggles the fingers, playfully. “Need somebody killed?”

“I can do that myself. I was an assassin when you were still in the cradle, you know.”

“I know. I figured you might be getting too old for it.”

Billie snorts. Emily the Clever, indeed.

 

_Lady Emily,  
_

_I can't take your coin after what I did. I'm trying to find a way to make peace_

 

They're fighting on the rooftop of Addermire, among the grime and bird droppings, something that began as sparring, with swords, and an agreement to refrain from using their respective Void powers, but has since devolved into scuffling like children in a gutter, dirty and vicious.

Lady Emily is all bone and sinew, jabbing and stabbing; her fist catches the side of Billie's face, a practiced move that makes the signet ring cut the flesh, confirming Billie's suspicions that the pointed metal is status, key, and weapon all in one. Billie lifts a leg, uses it as a barrier between herself and that bony body, and then kicks her off, her boot meeting the softness of the other's stomach. Emily groans and doubles over, clutching at herself, and Billie staggers to her feet, kicking the Empress again when she tries to do the same. This time her boot connects with a crunch, and Emily's hands fly to her face; she crawls backwards, putting distance between them before she tries to get up again. Billie sees the mask of blood and hesitates. She backs off, slightly.

Too late, she spies the mouth open in a snarl of laughter, the shining eyes, the coiled stance, before Lady Emily dives for her, tackling her back to the ground. Billie takes a few good hits before the fight goes out of Emily, and she sighs and collapses on her back, lying beside her opponent on the rooftop. They stare up at the blue-gray Karanca skies together for a moment in mutually wounded silence.

“Are you finished?”

“I think you broke my nose,” says the Empress, her voice muffled and nasal. She props herself on her elbows and gingerly touches the darkening mess in the center of her face. “I'll have to get all my royal portraits redone.”

Billie is quiet for a moment, biting back the half-formed apology on her tongue. She won't apologize. They had been fighting. She casts about for something to say, and settles on: “That must be a pain.”

“It is,” Emily laughs, and wipes the blood from her nose and mouth on her bare arm. “It's good, though. I haven't had a fight like this since...well, the last time I was in Karnaca.”

“Me neither,” Privately, Billie touches her tongue to a tooth that had been knocked loose. She feels a little too proud – or too self-conscious – to spit it out in front the Empress, though. Her jaw is stinging, and her entire mouth tastes thick and iron, and it's hard to pretend they only fight for fun anymore. She feels suddenly very tired.

Emily sniffs, and wipes more of the blood from her face, and then rubs her forearm on her pants. “It's beautiful up here.”

“Yeah,” the ex-Whaler admits. “It is.”

 

_Dear Emily,  
_

_I wish_  
 

Perhaps she had meant something by it, or perhaps she'd simply felt she was returning it to its rightful owner. Emily had a strong sense of what belonged to whom, by right. She had taken Meagan's hand before they parted, not quite a handshake, but too stiff and firm to be a tender gesture, and had slipped the small sharp thing into it. Somehow, Meagan knows what she'll see even before she opens her hand to look: A piece of a carved gazelle, weathered and stained, but its proud head still sharp enough to kill.

Where did you get this, she wants to ask, but by then, of course, it's far too late.

 

 _To Do:  
__-Mend vest  
__-Seal hatch  
__-Bullets  
__-Whiskey_  
 

“Look,” says Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin-Attano the First. “There.”

Billie Lurk – or Admiral Foster, as she's been growing accustomed to being called – lifts the spyglass to her eye and looks. Humped figures on the horizon. Emily directs her gaze, pushing the lens gently towards what she wants her to see: Beside one of those shadowy leviathans, a smaller shape.

“That little one?”

“A baby,” says Emily. “I've never seen a baby one before.”

“Neither have I,” Billie lowers the spyglass. “Your conservation efforts are working.”

“They're not _my_ efforts,” Emily is standing on the railing of the ship, she lets go of the rigging she was hanging off of and walks along it, arms splayed out like a playful child, although her balance is already impeccable. Billie watches her, thinking of the last ship they stood on together, with Karnaca in the distance, separated from them by the vast calm of an empty sea. Emily had walked on the railing then, too, laughing, happy to be going unseen.

“Someone else thought them up, Meagan, and I approved them,” The Empress continues. “I just do what they tell me, you know.”

Emily had never gotten into the habit of calling her Billie Lurk. She prefers to look at her and see Meagan Foster, the sea captain, her hero, not the assassin. Billie can't blame her.

“No you don't,” says Billie shortly.

“No,” Emily agrees, and smiles at her, fondly. “I don't.”


End file.
